10 Days in Asia! - See Asia in 10 Days

Well, not really see Asia, but yes, you can see Asia's map and get familiar and go to possibly 10 different countries in 10 days! Well that's what this game is all about. Traveling! around Asia. I had read about this series i.e. the 10 Days series (it comes in 4 variants- 10 Days in Asia, Europe, Africa and USA) and some of them had mentioned that this was the best among the lot and a good introductory game for people into boardgames.

While I can't comment on how good the rest are, as I haven't played them, I agree to some extent that this can be a good introductory game for children rather than adults.

This is perhaps my 1st of the bigger boxed games (probably you can't make out the size though my photos), but this is bigger than any of the games that I've reviewed so far.

Before I go into the game- if you have kids at home, get the entire series, it can be a good geographical experience for them, they will surely learn to locate countries and can learn about their capital, population and the size :-)

10 Days in Asia by- Alan R. Moon & Aaron Weissblum


Alan Moon is one of the most recognized active game designers and a two-time Spiel des Jahres winner. He is the organizer of the annual Gathering of Friends. Moon is an infrequent contributor to Board Game Geek under the username alanrmoon.

Moon began in the game industry with Avalon Hill as an assistant editor of Avalon Hill's magazine The General in 1979, but due to Avalon Hill's small staff quickly found himself also working as a game developer. Moon himself chronicled this time of his life in the geeklist My Four Years at Avalon Hill. He eventually left Avalon Hill in order to make a more livable wage at Parker Brothers' video division. He stayed at Parker Brothers only briefly, soon leaving to try becoming a professional game designer.

Moon worked as a game designer part-time, while taking consulting jobs and waiting tables to make ends meet. However, Moon was unable to find any success marketing his games to the larger publishers. Eventually, disheartened at the inability to find major publishers interested in his games, he co-founded White Wind in 1990 to publish his own designs. White Wind met with limited success, and Moon eventually left to again pursue design work for other publishers. In 1998, Amigo Spiele asked Moon to simplify Elfenroads, a 1992 White Wind release. Moon's resulting redesign, Elfenland, went on to win the 1998 Spiel des Jahres, establishing Moon as a premier game designer. He has since worked with many major publishers, and has enjoyed great success. Some of his reations include- Diamant, Ticket to Ride (btw this is a legend), 10 Days series etc. (from Boardgame geek website)

Aaron Weissblum is a game designer who frequently designs games with Alan R. Moon including popular games such as San Marco, the 10 Days in series, Capitol, Oasis, and New England. He is also one of the co-founders and puzzle creators for Tanga.com and has designed Puzzle Hunt contests for BGG.CON. (from Boardgame geek website)

What do you get in the Box?

For a light game, the box is very heavy! You'll see why :-)

• 78 tiles (57 Country tiles and 21 transportation tiles)
• 4 sets of wooden tile holders, 2 per set (this makes the box heavy). These wooden hilders have Day 1- Day 10 printed on them to keep the tile in the appropriate slot.
  
• A nicely printed map of Asia

The game is printed by Out of the Box and the quality of components is top class, though they could have made things light.

How does it Play?

• Players take tiles 10 of them from the face down draw pile and place them one after the the other without changing the order
• One placed they cannot be moved
  
• Place 3 tiles face up, which forms the discard pile
  

This is the initial setup and then the players start:

• On your turn, you pick up a tile either from the face down pile or from any of the face up discard pile
• You must place this tile by removing one tile from your tile holder, which is then discarded onto any of the 3 piles
• You may even discard the card you have just drawn

That's it, these are the rules. very simple right! The first to complete a logical route of 10 days is the winner!

Of course there are some aspects that needs to be adhered to while completing a route:

• Completed10 day journeys should start and end with country tiles and not transporttion tiles
• 2 tiles from the same country may be included so long as they are not next to each other
• It is not necessary to include any trasnportation tiles in your route
• Transportation tiles cannot be placed next to each other

Now having said all these how do you connect?

• Any country that is adjacent can be traveled by road, so just keep it next to each other
• On the map is the rail route connecting countries and hence you can use a Rail tile to connect those 2 countries
• Each country has a color code (5 colors in all). So you can use an aeroplane of appropriate color and connect it to another country of the same color. Eg. India (brown)- Brown Aeroplane- Russia (brown)
• Countries can be connected so long as they are on the same ocean i.e. Indian or Pacific.

So not fussy at all, pretty straight forward to learn and play :-) There is very little strategy or tactic as everything is based on tile draw, though some nasty things like placing a tile on one of the discard pile to prevent your opponent from getting a tile that you know he/she wants is a fun thing to do :-)

How long does it play?

With a really bad set of tile draws the game can extend upto 30 minutes, else 15-20 min is what you are looking at. Of course with 4 people, you can say it might be a 30 min game on an average. So pretty fast.

Who would you recommend it to?

Well I would say any household with young kids should have the entire set, just because parents can sit with kids, have fun and also learn some basic geography stuff! These games are available in popular toys/book strores across India, so you should get these ones. Otherwise I would say give this a skip as this becomes too boring with limited replayability.

Any Downsides?

Even casual gamers might not get into this game as it is too light. One say a very rare ocassion you might get a play or two, but that's about it. With luck playing such an important role, very difficult to induce gamers into this game :-)

Final Thoughts!

Well, though this game is simple and fun, I would strongly recommend this to only families with kids as they can enjoy more than a grown up adult gaming group. But as a laerning to know where countries are, this can be a fun game of and on! Try it if you get a chance before you buy! I would say for people with Children, get all the 4 games and play 40 days around the World!!

Blokus- A Fun Game with Squares!

Finally, I'm done with the Kosmos-Rio Grande 2-Player games that I had! Phew! Hope you liked a few games from the list and will try out some :-)

I have a few more 2-Player games, but they are a little advanced and hence would be talking about them a little later. Just to let you all know what they are: Mr. Jack, Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation- Deluxe Edition, Dungeon Twister, Commands and Colors: Ancients etc.

From now on, I'll be talking about multi-player games i.e. where more than 2 people can join in and have fun. I'll be starting off with a very simple and addictive fun game that takes about 1-2 min to learn, but as they all say "a lifetime to master" :-)

I'm talking about the very popular Blokus (A 1-4 Player abstract Strategy game), which is available across the world, including leading toy and books stores in India. It comes in various versions:

• A classic version- this is what I'm going to talk about
• A 2 player version- Called Blokus Duo
• A Triangular version- Called Blokus Trigon
• A 3D version

Blokus by- Bernard Tavitian

Bernard Tavitian holds a Master's degree in Mathematics from the University of Paris VI, an Engineering Degree from the prestigious Ecole Centrale in Paris, a Doctorate in Biophysics from the University of Paris VI and has held a post-doctoral position in the Department of Biochemistry at Yale University in the United States. At 46 years of age, this Frenchman now lives on the revenue stemming from the success of the Blokus® game. He spends his time reading, enjoying music and …. board games. (from http://www.sekkoia.com)

This is an abstract strategy game i.e. a game without a theme. Each player has 21 'Tetris' like pieces that he tries to place it on the board and in trying to do so, he also tries to obstruct his/her opponent.

This game has won about 9 awards between 2000 when it was released to 2005.

What do you get in the box?

This game comes with:

• A game board with 400 squares.
• 84 pieces (i.e. 21 pieces in each of the four colours- Red,Blue, Green & Yellow). Each of the 21 pieces has a different shape.

That's it! The 21 pieces are actually 'Tetris' like pieces that range from one square to 5 squares (In all possible combinations). The pieces look solid with very good finish.

How does it play?


As I mentioned earlier, this game takes about 1-2 min to learn and believe me, no exxagaration here.

• Each player must begin at one of the corners of the board.
  
• The order of play is blue, yellow, red, green.
  
• Each new piece that is placed on the board must touch another piece of the same colour, but it can only touch at the corners, never along the sides

The above rules are picked straight from the website. I didn't bother writing it because these are the rules! You can just buy the game and start playing after reading the 3 bullet points!

You can play solo and try to put all the pieces on the board or with 2 players choosing 2 colors each or 3 players choosing one color each and one neutral color with everyone playing the neutral color or 4 players where 2 people team up and play as a team.

The game ends when no more pieces can be placed on the board and the scoring is as follows:

• Each square which is not placed on the board counts as a negative point.
  
• A bonus of 15 points is awarded if all 21 pieces have been placed on the board.
  
• This bonus is increased to 20 points if the 21 pieces were placed on the board with the single square being placed last.

Though it might appear that you have to keep changing your game plan i.e. very tactical, it definitely has a strategy element if you play it more!

How long does it play?

This game takes somewherebetween 20-45 min depending on how much time people take to think. Believe me though the rules are simple, this game is very engaging and will make you come back anytime!

Who would you reccomend it to?

I think everyone should have it. I had not written about it before as this was a multi-player game, but this simple game is so good and available across that I recommend everyone to have it.

Any Downsides?

Well can't really think of any, apartfrom the fact that the classic version might be a little clumsy to carry during travel. (BTW that's why you have the travel edition or the DUO :-)
Final Thoughts!

This is a classic, very simple yet very attractive. It is not that abstract like Chess that will leave you brain drained after a really intense game. It gives you enough exercise for your grey cells to keep coming back and having fun with your entire family. As you keep playing this game more and more, you'll get to understand the differnt shapes better and would know whether to use a piece in an attacking fashion or a defensive fashion. Even a 5-6 yr can have as much fun as any of us!